Crossfitters on steroids

“It’s a product of pushing well past your limits,” says Vijay Jotwani, MD, a primary care sports medicine physician at Houston Methodist who serves as a team consultant for the Houston Astros. “You’re working hard, feeling the burn and go that next step—and another step, pushing far past the point of pain. Later, you have extreme muscle pain and swelling—much worse than delayed muscle soreness . You may also have dark colored urine. That’s because the [protein] myoglobin from your muscles has flooded into your bloodstream and your kidneys are overwhelmed.”

Cardiovascular risk factors include the alteration or diminishing of her glucose tolerance and hyperinsulinism (become resistant to insulin), a change in lipoproteins (carry cholesterol in blood) fraction which can cause cardiovascular disease and atherosclerosis (deposition of fatty substances onto inner walls of arteries causing blockage), increased triglyceride levels, hypertension (abnormally high blood pressure), changes in her myocardium (middle muscular layer of heart wall), and increased concentration levels of several different clotting factors. Cardiomyopathy (a typically chronic disorder of heart muscle that may involve hypertrophy and obstructive damage to the heart), myocardial infarction (localized death of the myocardium tissue usually leading to heart failure), heart attack, stroke, and cerebro-vascular accidents have all been causes in deaths where AAS abuse was implicated. Of course the liver, the body’s primary filtration system will come under attack as it has to accommodate the increased toxicity. Among the liver problems promoted are holestatic jaundice (failure of bile flow that causes yellowish pigmentation of skin, tissues, and body fluids), peliosis hepatis (blood-filled cysts develop on liver), hepatocellular hyperplasia (unusual increase of an epithelial parenchymatous cell called hepatocytes in the liver), and cancer. Secondary filters such as the kidneys and gallbladder also become more susceptible to disease.